Met Office Criticised for Political Lobbying

Date: 11/12/09

LONDON, 11 December 2009 – The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) today criticised the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and the UK Met Office for their political intervention in the international negotiations currently taking place in Copenhagen.

The Met Office claims that preliminary temperature data for 2009 show that global temperatures continue to rise and that the argument that global warming has stopped is flawed.

According to the Met Office, the final temperature data for 2009 will notbe made available until early next year. A spokesperson, however, stated that the preliminary estimates were released by the Met Office in orderto influence the negotiations at the Copenhagen Summit.

“We are very concerned that both agencies have overstepped their scientific remits, which are supposed to provide governments with balanced advice and empirical data, and not to lobby politically,” Dr Benny Peiser, the Director of the GWPF said.

The GWPF is also concerned that global temperature data is being misrepresented to give the impression of continuous global warming. Inreality, there has been no statistically significant warming trend for thelast decade. The GWPF says this is a vital fact that must not be ignored.

“The world’s major scientific journals agree that since 2001 the global average temperature has been constant. We live in a warm decade and the world is reacting to that warmth but, contrary to predictions, the world isn’t getting any warmer at the moment,” Dr David Whitehouse, the GWPF’sscience editor, said.

Suggestions by the Met Office that a warming trend will resume in the next year or two should be treated with reserve in light of the recognised difficulties in making such confident predictions. After all, a number ofeminent scientists have published work which suggests that global temperatures might continue to flatline for up to another 10-15 years.

“As a result of the absence of any recorded 21st century warming trend,the formulation now favoured by climate campaigners is that the last decade has been the warmest since records began. It is rather as if the world’s population had stopped rising and all the demographers could say was that global population had been the highest ever recorded,” Lord Lawson, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, said.